


The Night Before Christmas

by Era_Penn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Clues, Curses, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, I should be doing homework, Inspired by Art, Kidnapping, Loki being a jerk, M/M, Magic, Monsters, Pining, Riddles, Tony Feels, UA, because I can't be bothered to worry about timelines, kidnapped Stark, kind of, pretending Civil War doesn't exist, scavenger hunt, team spider vengers, trapped in a Christmas ornament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8906797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Era_Penn/pseuds/Era_Penn
Summary: Tony's just settled in to watch some Christmas movies and ignore the loneliness of all the other Avengers having holiday plans when he gets an unwelcome guest.Loki's got plans, and he needs a distraction. Steve, calling to wish Tony a merry Christmas, gets Loki instead. Avengers assemble - Tony Stark is missing, and according to Loki, the clock's counting down.Fast.





	1. ...And at the Penthouse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arianapeterson19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianapeterson19/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tumblr Fanart Post](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/249106) by hello-shellhead, Gina. 



> (cross-posted on my Tumblr, we-are-marvel-us)

“Dammit,” Tony sighs. “Again? Why is it always me?”

“That’s not the reaction I was expecting,” Loki snickers. He lifts Tony up to eye level to smirk at him properly.

“Yeah, well,” Tony says, “I wasn’t expecting to get shrunk and trapped in a Christmas ornament while innocently watching cheesy Christmas specials on my couch, either. Couldn’t you at least have shrunk my fluffy blanket and popcorn, too?” He shivers and tucks his feet in closer to himself. It’s cold being a Christmas ornament.

“No,” Loki replies.

“Figures.”

“Think your precious Avengers have noticed you missing yet?” Loki muses. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, you see.”

“Doubt it,” Tony says. He aims for casual, but he can hear just a tiny bit of his loneliness slipping through. “They’ve all got holiday plans.”

Loki raises an eyebrow at him. “Hoh...” he says. Tony’s phone rings where it’s dangling from the god’s fingers.

* * *

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” Steve yells over the blaring Christmas music. 

“Going to call your crush, Rogers?” Sam laughs, slightly drunk.

Steve blushes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. Everyone laughs. Stepping out onto the balcony of Clint’s apartment to get away from the noise, Steve sighs. He’s only staying for a bit, and then he’s planning on visiting some graves. Not the most exciting way to spend Christmas, but it is something he feels he needs to do. Steve pulls his phone out of his pocket, and calls speed dial one.

It doesn’t take long for Tony’s phone to pick up.

“Ah, the captain,” a familiar voice drawls. “I apologize, but your Stark is _a little busy_ at the moment.”

Steve freezes, turning to the glass door behind him and waving to get Clint’s attention. Clint, much less drunk than most of the other party goers in an effort to keep his apartment intact, narrows his eyes and starts getting the attention of the guests, telling them it’s time to go. Natasha and Sam are converging on Clint, noting his sudden alertness. “Loki,” Steve says, knowing Clint is reading his lips. “What have you done with him?”

“Nothing at all. He hasn’t even left his penthouse.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“That will be a bit difficult. He’s got a **little** problem to deal with.”

* * *

Tony yelps as Loki shakes the ornament he’s trapped in, tumbling. The surface is slippery; there’s nothing for him to brace against. 

The world spins as Loki turns, and he gets a better glimpse at their surroundings, albeit red-tinged because of the ornament. His stomach sinks. They’re at some kind of festival of lights. There are dozens of trees decorated and lit, and almost no one around. It’s snowing. No wonder he’s freezing.

Loki, still talking on the phone with Steve, hums. He locates a tree packed with red ornaments. Tony stares at it, dread growing in his stomach.

“You see, captain,” Loki says, “I can’t have you getting in the way. So I’ve set up a treasure hunt for you.”

A pause. Tony can almost hear Steve growling into the phone. He shrinks in on himself in his glass prison. He can’t believe he’s being such a bother even on Christmas Eve. No wonder he was home alone. He’s surprised Steve even bothered to call him.

“The prize? Why, Tony Stark, of course. If you find him fast enough, you might even locate him before hypothermia sets in.” Loki’s smile is full of malice. “Consider it payback for ruining my plans at the parade last month."

The world moved again, and Loki carefully hung Tony’s ornament on the tree, deep in the branches. He's sure it fit in well, red as the rest.

“Hey - hey!” Tony yells.

Loki frowns. “He is quite good at making noise... We’ll have to put a stop to that. Wouldn’t want the game to end too soon.”

He snaps his fingers, and just like that, Tony’s voice is gone. He beats his fist against the glass. He’s only chilly now, but that’s going to change fast in weather like this.

“Clock’s ticking, captain,” Loki says, as he leaves Tony there. “Your first clue is in the last bottle that was emptied.”

He flips Tony’s phone shut, drops it in the snow, and crushes it under his heel. His lips curve into a smirk. “You’d best hope your Avengers are willing to spend Christmas cold and searching, Stark,” Loki says.

Tony slumps in the ornament, fists having failed to so much as scratch the interior. “They will,” he tries to say, tries to believe, lips moving without sound. “They - I -”

Loki spins on his heel and vanishes, leaving behind only the snow and the gleaming Christmas lights.


	2. ...A genius was sleeping alone on his couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I suck at writing these clues, I'm not smart enough to be a trickster. Just pretend it's confusing, please be nice.

Steve grips his phone so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t break when the call ends. He shoves it into his pocket and strides inside. The guests have left, aside from Clint, Natasha, and Sam.

“Avengers Assemble,” Steve says grimly. “We’ve got Loki, a missing Stark, and a time limit. And we need to find ‘the last bottle emptied,’ whatever that means.”

Natasha whips out her phone to send a mass text to the Avengers scattered for the holidays. 

“Luckily, I drained the most recently emptied bottle,” Sam grins at him and holds the bottle out. Sure enough, a thin slip of parchment is curled at the base. 

Clint, face carrying perfect focus and rage coiling in his eyes, grabs the bottle and smashes it against his coffee table with no hesitation. Reaching into the mess of glass shards, Clint pulls the parchment loose, and reads it aloud.

_The next clue found in Just buried warmth_  
_tick tock, tick tock, A man there then gone_  
_but Really, beware, rakshasa stands guard_  
_and the warmth’s fading fast, Very fast_  
_so run, Avengers, run; or with the Intelligent stolen_  
_the System will crash, lost and alone with no funeral wrap._

Clint places it in the center of the table where they can all examine it. Steve’s fists clench. “Any ideas?” he asks.

Natasha frowns and leans in to look closer. They stare at the note.

Steve’s phone rings. He pulls it back out of his pocket, forcing his muscles to loosen. “Rogers,” he says.

“Steve! What the hell is going on? I just got a text from Natasha that Tony’s missing -”

“Rhodes,” Steve says. His voice doesn’t sound quite right, and Rhodes’ ranting pauses. “Putting you on speaker. I tried to call Tony, but Loki picked up. He’s sending us on a scavenger hunt to find Tony, but says the clock’s ticking. We’re at Clint’s apartment trying to figure out the first riddle.”

“I’m on my way. ETA half an hour. Have you asked Jarvis if he knows anything?”

“Jarvis!” Sam says suddenly.

“Yeah, he’s -”

“No, Jarvis! I asked Tony once what it stood for - he lied, I could tell, but he said “Just a Really Very Intelligent System.” Look at the capitalized words!”

Steve nods. “Okay, so somewhere with Jarvis. Where, then?”

“Wherever Tony disappeared from,” Natasha replies, tapping the second line - a man there then gone. “What were his plans tonight?”

“He told me he was going out with you lot,” Rhodey says. 

“He told us he was going with you,” Steve groans.

“Where would Tony go if he didn’t want to be found, Rhodey?” Natasha asks.

“The penthouse. Not at the Tower - he’s got another one in the city, with Jarvis all wired in.”

“Where?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know!” Rhodey growls. “I -”

“Hang on, call coming in,” Steve says. He checks the caller ID. “It’s Pepper.”

“I’ll conference her,” Natasha says, grabbing Steve’s phone. She pushes a few buttons. “Pepper, Rhodey’s on the other line. Do you know where Tony’s other penthouse is?”

She gives them the address immediately. “What’s going on? Jarvis says Tony vanished, and he can’t find his tracker.” 

“Loki took him. We’re searching now. We’ll call back when we find the second clue,” Natasha replies.

“Everyone suit up and meet at that address,” Steve says. “Natasha, Clint, can you coordinate with SHIELD? Loki outright said this was to keep us busy - I want to know what else he’s up to.”

The two spies nod. “We’ll be there soon,” Natasha says. She’s already texting the address to the other Avengers on her own phone. “Let us know as soon as you find the clue.”

Steve grimaces, and grabs the clue, sticking it in his pocket. “Let’s just hope it’s that easy.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Steve is barreling up the stairs of Tony’s building towards the penthouse. When he finally reaches the top, he freezes in shock. Bruce Banner, a little green around the eyes, stands there. Bruce had taken off just before the holiday season, heading to only-Tony-knew-where. 

“Steve,” he greets.

“Bruce,” Steve replies. “It’s been a while.”

Bruce grimaces. “Yes, well,” he replies. “Shall we?”

With a grim nod, Steve kicks in the door. Bruce followed him into the room, his hands in his pockets.

Both men pull up short when they see a tuft of brown hair poking up from the couch. There’s Tony on the couch, buried in blankets and breathing evenly in sleep as a Christmas movie plays on the TV. Next to the couch is a half-empty mug, a clock painted on the side.

“...Okay,” Bruce says. “False alarm, I guess.”

Steve nods, stunned. “Apparently. This is bizarre. Maybe Loki just needed a little distraction?”

“I guess. Let me see that clue?”

Steve digs it out of his pocket and hands it over, then steps lightly around the couch. Tony’s wrapped up in a thick, soft blanket. His face looks peaceful.

“STEVE, MOVE!” Bruce yells. 

Steve jumps backward on instinct, just in time to dodge a fast strike from the not-so-asleep Tony. His nails are more claw-like than humans generally possessed. “What the -”

“Rakshasa,” Bruce growls. “They’re shape-shifting monsters from Buddhist and Hindu legend. Steve, _that’s not Tony_.”

The monster smiles sweetly at Steve. “Steve, what’s wrong?” it asks, voice a perfect imitation of Tony’s, full of concern. “It’s just me.”

Steve stands frozen, his shield in his hands. That’s Tony’s face, Tony’s voice. Then he looks into its eyes. They’re just as blue as Tony’s, but instead of warmth, they exude ice.

“No,” Steve replies. “It’s not.” And he hits it. Hard. 

It shrieks and rears back, losing Tony’s shape. The monster revealed has vicious claws, yellowed, jagged teeth, and a large belly. It grins at him. “Clever clever, little prey,” it snarls, and lunges.

Steve swings the shield again, forcing it back as he advances. “Where is he?” he demands.

The monster laughs. “How should I know?” it gloats. “I’m just in this for the meal.”

By the door, Bruce is taking careful breaths, eyes sharp. If he has to, he’ll Hulk, but then he won’t be able to help with the coming clues, and Steve thinks they’re going to need his brain to figure them out. Staring at the monster, Steve feels his rage and fear rising, driving him forward. “In that case,” he says coldly, “You’re useless to me.”

He drives forward, ducking under a swipe of the monster’s claws. It lashes out with paw-like feet, drawing blood from Steve’s leg. It’s only a scratch, and Steve ignores it. He throws the shield at one wall, counting on Tony’s tendency to reinforce everything, and raises his arms to block the monster’s immediate attack. 

The shield bounces back off of the reinforced wall. It’s over fast.

Steve grabs his shield turns away from the freshly decapitated monster to stride over to where Bruce is staring at the clue. “There has to be more to it than just the penthouse,” he murmurs. “I mean look at this place, we don’t have time to search it all.” 

Steve looks around. It is pretty large, and full of hiding places for a small slip of paper. 

“The next clue found in Just buried warmth…” Bruce says. “Tick tock, tick tock… the warmth’s fading fast… no funeral wrap…”

Steve waits, adrenaline simmering in his veins. “Well?” he asks.

Bruce doesn’t respond, lips shaping the lines. Steve barely notes Natasha and Clint entering through the door, or opening a large window for Sam. 

“Someone check the blankets on the couch and the bed,” Bruce says. Steve moves immediately to the couch as the two spies dash down the hall to find the bedroom.

Looking up, Bruce looks around, evaluating the room. “Sam,” he says. “Is that mug still warm?” he gestures to the mug sitting on the floor next to the couch, miraculously undisturbed by the battle.

Sam grabs it. “Lukewarm,” he replies.

“Drink it.”

“What?”

“Drink it!”

“Okay, okay!” Sam downs it, grimacing slightly. “Ugh, lukewarm hot chocolate…”

“It was warm, but it cools fast - tick tock, tick tock,” Bruce says. “And it’s next to the blankets, which Tony doesn’t have - no funeral wrap. Plus there’s a clock on the side of the mug. If I’m right, then -”

Sam pulls a piece of parchment from his mouth. “How the hell is this thing dry?” he whines.

“Clint, Natasha!” Steve yells, abandoning the couch blankets. They come running. “We found it,” he says. “Call everyone you can reach and get them on speaker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next clue, for anyone who wants to try and guess:
> 
>  
> 
> _Let’s h o p e you’re moving faster_   
>  _than the crystals can grow_   
>  _ice isn’t kind, nor cushions of snow_   
>  _your stolen treasure h o p e less waits -_   
>  _the next clue can be found_   
>  _where Buberl's angels_   
>  _guard science and fact_   
>  _(careful, don't touch, or you won't come back)._


	3. The second clue glistened in ink red as blood…

It turns out Natasha can reach a lot of people. Rhodey, on his way, Pepper, Spider-Man, Jan, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, and T’Challa all conference in, while Bruce, Clint, Sam, and Steve lounge around Tony’s warm living room with her, ignoring the dead body in the corner. Thor’s been unreachable, which isn’t comforting.

“We’ll deal with whatever Loki’s up to,” Mr. Fantastic says. “The last thing you need is a distraction right now.”

“Call me if you need magical help,” Doctor Strange tells him.

“Of course.”

The Four get off the line, and the rest of them settle in to work on the next clue. This time it’s Bruce who reads it out loud.

_Let’s h o p e you’re moving faster  
than the crystals can grow  
ice isn’t kind, nor cushions of snow  
your stolen treasure h o p e less waits -  
the next clue can be found  
where Buberl's angels   
guard science and fact  
(careful, don't touch, or you won't come back)._

“Who the heck is Buberl?” Clint asked. “And am I the only one who really, really doesn’t like that last line? Because I don’t like it. Just a side note.”

“Agreed,” Sam says. Clint notes a slightly glazed look in his eyes. Thinking too hard, probably. Most of them weren’t made for riddles. They tended to be strategic thinkers. Natasha and Tony usually dealt with weird twisty things.

Natasha interrupts his thoughts, reading from her phone screen, “Burbel is probably Caspar Buberl, a sculptor known for his work on civil war monuments and the 1200 foot (370 meter) frieze on the Pension Building in D.C.” She types something into her phone and frowns. “As far as I can tell, no angels.”

“What about that guard science and fact thing?” Steve asks.

“Let me see…” she types some more. “Huh. The closest thing that I see is a sculpture he did called Columbia Defending Science and Industry. Let’s see… it’s at the Art and Industries Building, part of the Smithsonians.”

A collective pause. “D.C.,” Sam says. “It’s in D.C.?!”

“Presumably. But that’s the National Museum. It’s massive,” Bruce grumbles. 

“Wait,” Clint interrupts, “what’s that sound?” Turning, he freezes, and the others whip around as well.

The odd squelching is coming from the rakshasa, which, laying on the ground, is attempting to reattach its head to its body. Blood oozes out of the gash in its neck as it twists it slightly, popping neck bones back into place. It cuts itself on its own claws, seemingly barely noticing. 

“WHAT THE HELL,” Clint screeches, and shoots it.

The rakshasa, unfazed, slowly clambers to its feet. “Now that wasn’t very friendly,” it says in Tony’s voice, glaring at Steve.

“What’s happening?” Spider-Man demanded over the phone. “Is that Tony?”

“No!” Steve says. “The rakshasa - I thought we had it pretty well handled, since it was beheaded and all, but now it’s trying to eat us again!” Clint thinks he looks rather less horrified than the situation warrants, but rather frustrated.

It says something about their lives that Clint is feeling about the same way.

“A rakshasa?” Doctor Strange sounds vaguely interested. “I’ve never actually met one. Can it really shapeshift?”

Watching it morph back into Tony in a sickeningly slow slide of flesh to flesh and eyes popping into another shape and color, Clint swallows. “Yep,” he says, voice unsteady. “You all keep focusing on the damn clue. We need to deal with this.”

“You have to beat it in hell to kill it,” Strange informs them, as though discussing the weather.

“Great, that’s real helpful,” Clint replies.

“Really guys,” it says, giving them the Tony Stark Eyebrow ™ , “I know we don’t get along great, but this seems a bit extreme.”

“It’s pretending to be Tony,” Clint reports.

“I can come drag it back to hell now -”

“Yes please,” Clint, Steve, and Natasha say simultaneously.

“-or I can head to D.C. for the clue first,” he finishes.

They all pause. 

“Ice!” Spider-Man says. 

“What?” Steve asks.

“Ice! The thugs I was dealing with a couple days ago - they were talking about ice - stolen diamonds. And the largest, most cursed diamond in the world is currently at the National Museum. The Hope Diamond. Which just so happens to have a cut called antique cushion.”

“That… actually makes sense. Nice work, kid,” Clint says.

“Not a kid. And I might not be Tony or Bruce level, but I still make the superhero genius list.”

“Doctor Strange, collect Spider-Man -”

“And me,” Natasha cuts in.

“- and Widow, and collect the diamond. War Machine, ETA?”

“Two minutes, Cap.”

“Perfect. We’ll deal with this thing until Strange hops back and can drag it to hell.”

Clint smiles grimly as Steve doles out his orders. “You got it, Cap,” he says. “After all, we’re down an Avenger. We can handle a hellbeast if he needs us to. And everyone put in your earpieces - we’re going to need better comms for this.”

Steve is holding up admirably well, Clint thinks. Especially considering the crush he has on Tony. _Hang in there, Iron Idiot_ , Clint thinks. _we’re coming_.

* * *

Tony rubs his bare arms and curls his knees up against his chest. His breath fogs in front of him, but he’s staying surprisingly warm. His body heat is filling the space of the small bauble he’s stuck in. The red glass is building up condensation. It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s buying him more time - though not much, since there is a hole in the top of the damn thing and hot air rises - but on the other hand, it’s also making it harder for him to see out of the glass. That means it’s also harder for anyone else to see in.

He can see faint shadows moving past his glass prison. He’s tried to shout for help more than a few times. All it does is make his throat hurt. He can’t so much as hum. 

Tipping onto his side, Tony buries his head against the ripped knees of his jeans. “Is anyone even looking for me?” he tries to whisper, just to fill the silence. No sound emerges from his lips. Frustration growing, Tony growls silently and clambers onto his feet, the ornament swaying as he moves. Carefully he balances in the ball, feet cold against the slick surface. He’s hunched over, just a little too tall to fit. Raising a fist, he hits it against the top of the bauble. The silver cap doesn’t budge. Gritting his teeth, he tries again. If he can just knock himself out of the tree, the glass should shatter.

Unless magic is involved.

Tony really, really hates magic. 

Sighing, he sits down again, curling in on himself. The three warmest places on the human body are, in order, the groin, chest, and armpits, in that order. Unfortunately, Tony’s chest had a chunk of metal in it picking up the cold, so that didn’t help much. Behind the crook of the knee was also surprisingly warm.

Tony tucks his hands under his armpits. He needs those. He’d rather lose toes, when it starts getting colder. Plus, with his arms wrapped across his chest, he protects the arc from the chill a bit as well. He rests his head on his knees and lets his mind wander, in hopes of stumbling across some kind of idea to get himself out of this. Instead, his thoughts wander to the other Avengers. 

Specifically big, blonde, and patriotic.

His crush on Steve is really quite pathetic. It’s like a little kid crush - adorable, in a pitiful, never-going-anywhere sort of way. Steve’s so nice, all the time. He even offered to let Tony tag along to visit graves and Clint’s party tonight. Tony turned him down, not wanting to bother anyone on Christmas. He’s okay in the penthouse with some movies. Mama Rhodes expects him for dinner tomorrow, though - the Rhodes never let him get away with being alone on Christmas. She’s going to be upset when he doesn’t show. Tony wonders if Rhodey will wait to tell her he’s gone until after. That seems like a Rhodey thing to do.

Mama Rhodes would kill him if he tried, though, so Tony would probably ruin Christmas for them. He’s been doing so well lately, too, Mama Rhodes hadn’t even tsked over his weight last time he visited. Well, no more than she did over Rhodey, anyway. He wasn’t force-fed heavy foods the whole visit.

He curls up tighter. “Rhodey,” he tries to call. “Rhodey!” No sound comes out. Tony sighs, the air fogging in front of him. If anyone can find him, it’s Rhodey. Rhodey never stops looking for him.

He can’t help but wish Cap would come looking too, though.

A drop of water lands on Tony’s nose. There’s another downside to the condensation, he realizes. By the time it’s cold enough to go away, Tony’s going to be unpleasantly damp for this kind of weather. Bruce is going to be green if he gets pneumonia or something.

* * *

Peter groans and clutches his stomach. “Worst feeling ever,” he complains.

Natasha doesn’t bend over dramatically, but she does look a little pale, and Doctor Strange is smirking, so Peter feels totally justified in emphasizing the nausea. He doesn’t like teleportation by sorcerer. 0/10 would try again.

“You get used to it,” Strange says. “Shall we?”

Peter looks around. The museum is dark, and he’s ninety percent sure they’ve just entered illegally. They haven’t broken anything though - yet - so that’s gotta count for something. “So,” he asks, “anyone know where the gemstone exhibits are?”

Natasha walks over to the front desk and ruffles through the papers in what was probably a locked drawer. “Got a map,” she replies, holding it up. 

Peter squints, trying to pick her out of the darkness. Doctor Strange says… something, and the lights all turn on. His comm buzzes at the same moment.

 _“Check in?”_ Steve says, breathing hard.

“We’re at the museum,” Peter replies. “No sign of anything amiss, yet.”

“Loki’s magic is all over the place,” Strange grumbles. “It itches.”

 _“Jan! Look out! Check in every ten, you three!”_ The comms cut out.

“Lovely,” Natasha says. “Shall we?”

Peter nods. None of these people know him. None of them would tell Aunt May if something happened. Except Tony. Tony, who plays with him in the lab, and pokes at Bruce with him, and gives Peter cool gadgets, and not-so-subtly has War Machine tailing him on bigger missions. And right now Tony’s presumably slowly freezing to death somewhere. “Oh yes, we shall,” Peter says. 

He and Strange follow Natasha as she consults the map. They walk. And they walk. And they walk. And then they walk some more. Natasha stops. “We should be there by now,” she says. 

Peter frowns and closes his eyes. With his vision cut, everything feels… really far away. 

“Ah,” Doctor Strange says. “Grab the cloak.”

Peter and Natasha do so. It’s never a good idea to ignore the resident magic expert when dealing with other, hostile magic. 

Peter really, really hates magic.

Doctor Strange lifts his arms. Whorls of light follow their movement. He speaks and Peter hears his voice like it’s echoing into the belly of the Mines of Moria, massive and fluid and reaching into some distant place he and Natasha can never feel. The hairs rise on the back of his neck, every sense he has prickling at him to book it in the opposite direction.

And then it stops, and the world feels close again. His comm unit fizzes in.

_“-in, Widow. Widow. Spider-Man!”_

“Hear, Cap,” Peter croaks.

“We were caught in a trickster’s web,” Strange informs Steve. “It took me longer than I thought to get us out of it.”

Peter wonders just how long that took. It had felt like an eternity squeezed into the span of a moment. Natasha, on Strange’s other side, doesn’t look like she’s feeling much better.

_“Next time you’re going to drop out for a quarter hour, give us some warning!”_

_“Cap!”_ Clint screeches, and Peter winces. _“Duck!”_

The comm closes off again. Peter hopes they can deal with the rakshasa long enough for the three of them to find the next clue. If they were out for a quarter hour, then Tony’s been lost for almost a full one.

Striding forward, Natasha takes the lead again. This time the map seems to be doing some good, as they make actual progress through the building. The deeper into the building they go, the jitterier Peter feels. Glancing over his shoulder at a prickling of his spider senses, Peter almost misses a step.

“We’re being stalked by floating dresses,” he hisses. 

“Interesting,” Strange says, and keeps moving. 

Peter is pretty sure his stride quickens, though, so he feels vindicated. A low wheezing noise starts behind him somewhere. “Do you hear that?” he asks.

“No,” Natasha says. “We don’t have the same level of enhanced senses.”

Peter listens. It sounds familiar, a whizzing groan he swears he’s heard before. “I think it’s a… propeller plane?” he says uncertainly, and then all hell breaks loose. The dresses had slipped up alongside while Peter was distracted by the plane sound, and they rush at them all at once. Peter never thought he’d be terrified of disembodied, ancient dresses, but they are making a remarkable attempt at strangling the lot of them. In glimpses between fabric, Peter notes that Strange’s cloak seems to be taking this personally, and holds in a hysterical giggle.

As Peter wrestles his way free of the fabric, webbing the dresses attacking him to the floor, his sense tingle. Something else is coming. Something big. “Shit, shit shit shit shit,” he says, webbing the dresses he can get to away from Strange and Natasha. “Run run run run run!” his voice gets steadily louder as the ominous feeling gets closer.

Strange and Natasha don’t ask questions, booking it down the long hallway the moment they’re free of the fabric. Peter follow right behind them. The whining noise is getting closer.

“What is it?” Natasha asks, breathless.

“The _Spirit of St. Louis_ and most of _The Stark Hall of Robotics in History_ , I think,” Peter yells back, and Natasha and Strange kick it up a notch. No one wants anything to do with having anything Stark as an enemy. Starks hold grudges.

Risking a glance back over his shoulder, Peter pales. The old plane is getting much too close, and the robots behind it are advancing rapidly. Turning forward and continuing to run, Peter pulls a glove loose with his teeth, revealing one of the web shooters he and Tony just upgraded. Flicking through the settings, he growls. “Come on come on come on - got it!” He hits a button and spins.

A massive wall of webs explodes outwards from the shooter. It will pretty much drain his web fluid, but it fills the space between the three of them and the attacking artifacts effectively. Peter winces when he sees a Picasso fly into it. Hopefully that’s restorable, or Cap might cry on him. The real test, though, is the plane. The _Spirit of St. Louis_ plows into the web with enough force to dent it, springing inwards like a rubber band. A sticky rubber band. The web starts to shred under the propeller but then tangles in the rotating blades. The animate plane draws to a stop with a shriek of metal and a revving engine. Peter cuts the web loose of his wrist and turns.

Natasha and Strange stare at him. “Nicely done,” Natasha allows.

Peter grins. “Remind me to thank Tony for his help with the upgrades later,” he says. 

Natasha nods, all business once again. “Let’s go,” she says. “It’s just down this hallway.”

Peter swaps out the almost-empty cartridge as they jog down the hall. “Hey,” he asks. “Do we need to check in with Cap again?”

“I did while you were busy with the homicidal historical artifacts,” Natasha replies.

Peter nods and focuses on running.

* * *

Pausing outside the door to the Hope Diamond room, Natasha eyes Spider-Man speculatively. He seems tense, and prepared, but not jumpy.

That’s good. Jumpy apparently meant homicidal dresses and angry Picassos. She can probably confirm that he has an extra sense now, but she also owes him, so she’ll keep it within the Avengers. SHIELD has been annoying lately anyway. 

Glancing the other way, Natasha frowns slightly. Strange is a bit more worried than she tends to prefer to see on egotistical magic users. “Strange?” she asks.

“Loki’s done something,” Strange says. “I’m not sure what, from here, and he’s used some Nordic runes - I’m not fluent in ancient Norse yet, been busy with Sanskrit - but I doubt it’s going to be friendly.”

Spider-Man hums in agreement. “It prickles. It’s a passive threat. Like a spring, or a trigger.”

“Well, Tony’s been in the cold for forty-seven minutes now, probably in ratty jeans,” Natasha says, “So let’s go spring it.”

She and Tony got off to a rocky start, what with the whole Natalie thing. Still, they’ve been making steady progress towards almost-friendship, and she would hate for the effort to be wasted. Besides, she’s pretty sure he upgraded her weaponry for Christmas.

Plus he’s kind of adorable and cuddly after twenty hour workshop binges, and absentmindedly gentlemanly pretty much always.

Taking a deep breath, she opens the door.

She isn’t sure what she was expecting, but an empty, perfectly normal display room wasn’t it.

“Huh,” Spider-Man says, apparently in agreement. He steps forward to take the lead to the display case in the center of the room. Natasha lets him. His extra sense and enhanced strength are valuable assets in such an unpredictable situation, and he has magical backup.

Nothing continues to happen rather obtrusively.

Peter peers into the case. “Oh,” he says. “Weeellll then.”

“What?”

“The clue. It’s uh. It’s _inside_ the most cursed diamond in the world.”

Strange strides forward to join Peter. Natasha hangs back warily, and activates her comm. “Cap, we may go offline again. Strange is taking a look at some interesting magical voodoo with our next clue.”

 _“Got it,”_ Steve replies. He’s out of breath and in pain, but his voice sounds determined. _“Get us that clue. Tony’s been out too long.”_

“Agreed,” Natasha murmurs, and closes the comm again. 

Strange peers at the empty air around the diamond, walking a slow circle around the case. “This may be a problem,” he says.

“Great,” Peter says, sarcasm sharp as a blade. “Trickier than finding Tony?”

“The diamond,” Strange continues, ignoring him, “is indeed cursed. Loki appears to have… amped it up, for lack of better terminology. He’s also added an interesting key to get the clue out of the diamond.”

“What kind of key?” Natasha asks. She doesn’t like where this is going.

“Two Avengers have to hold the diamond at the same time, thus getting cursed, for the clue to reveal itself,” Strange says. “Normally I’d take the time to find a workaround, but I could spend days looking for loopholes in magic this complex, and I doubt Tony has that long.”

Natasha wonders suddenly why Strange came so promptly when they told him Tony was missing, and just how good their friendship is that Strange would admit his failings to find him faster.

“I’ll do it,” Spider-Man says.

Natasha nods. “And I.”

Strange opens his mouth, looking determined, and Natasha cuts him off.

“No,” she says, “we really could use you uncursed. Both to help us survive it and to get rid of that rakshasa after. I doubt Tony will be untouched when we find him, either.” She can’t help placing a little emphasis on the _when_. 

The three exchange glances, and Strange steps back, mouth pressing into a thin line. 

Natasha turns on her comm. “Cap,” she says. “We’re about to do something very, very stupid. See you soon if we live.” She shuts the comm off to his angry protests and turns to Spider-Man.

He easily breaks open the display case. That, of all things, is what finally sets the building alarms off. They reach out, and grab the gem.

* * *

_Natasha relaxes back against the couch, humming. She’s warm and content on the couch, watching indulgently as Clint shakes a present by the tree. Steve’s in an armchair nearby, sketching, Spider-Man and Bruce napping on opposite ends of the other couch._

_“This is nice,” she says._

_Clint nods in agreement. “Thank God you got rid of the nuisance,” he says._

_“What?”_

_Clint laughs. “Good one, Nat,” he says, and grins. The others in the room laugh too._

_“Yeah,” Bruce agrees. “Would’ve been a downer to have him around again. No one’s found his body yet, either.”_

_Nausea rises in Natasha’s throat, burning like acid. The fire is spilling from the fireplace, slinking around the room._

_Tony’s the only one missing. There are other faces not present, but Tony’s the only one_ missing _. Oh God, what had she done? It had been a harmless joke - maybe we’d be better off without you - and it was because she was afraid, afraid after Tony had almost died, again._

_“Yeah,” her lips say, the bile escaping her throat like razor blades. “But if anyone asks, he fell on that knife,” and she’s laughing, why are they laughing, oh God, Tony -_

* * *

Stephen silently vows that, as soon as he gets home and sleeps all this nonsense off, he’s going to learn every speck of Nordic magic he can get his hands on.

Every.

Damn.

Speck.

A slip of parchment had appeared the moment Spider-Man and Natasha collapsed, and he snatches it, handing it to the Cloak to hold. Kneeling, he examines the two curses on his allies. The original curse, the curse of the diamond, guarantees them a miserable death. It has no time limit. The new curse, the one Loki cast, guarantees they’ll live in their worst nightmares for the duration of the first curse. It’s intricate, detailed, and quite possibly the darkest magic Stephen has come across since -

No, not the time. Focus. 

He buries his hands in the magic and tugs.

* * *

_He is strong. He’s strong, and he’s fast. None of them stood a chance. Like this, he can do all the good in the world. Hell, he was stronger than most of them in the first place._

_Peter looks up, and reflected in the mirror, his suit is black, and the people around his feet aren’t the bad guys._

* * *

Stephen isn’t sure how long he works, but eventually, he taps on the head of the curses attached to his unconscious allies, and the magic

_s h a t t e r s_

And then he’s moving, weariness down to his bones making him slow, but these aren’t the only friends fighting right now. He heaves them over his shoulders and drags them through a portal, straight into chaos.

“Took you long enough,” Clint says, and then his eyes widen.

Stephen can’t blame him. He must look a _mess_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a tumblr drabble.
> 
> Why can't I drabble, why?!
> 
> A zillion thanks as usual to my beta reader, Hawkwind1980, without whom I would have put this off until probably Wednesday.
> 
> Next clue, for those who want a gander at it:  
>  _Down the rabbit hole, rabbit,  
>  there’s just one clue more.   
> The wind’s straight in from Jersey,  
> you’ve been there before.  
> The reigning queen of Hell  
> doesn’t know that she’s waiting  
> but I’m sure that she’ll see you  
> if the devil’s out playing -  
> but run quickly rabbit, you're running late  
> you’ve got until midnight, and then the spell breaks._


	4. ...but time’s running out, with three down and out.

“What happened?” Steve demands, dashing over. The others have the rakshasa well-pinned, for the moment. They’re all scratched, bruised, and bloodied, but Strange sets an unconscious Natasha and Spider-Man set carefully on the floor beside him.

“What time is it?” Strange asks. His skin is almost as white as the snow on the ground, and his eyes are ringed by shadows. His hands are scratched up, as though he’s been clutching glass, and his voice is rough enough to sand wood. He looks like he’s about to keel over and join the two spiders on the floor.

“What?”

“The time, Rogers, the time!”

“Eleven,” he replies. “It’s been an hour since Natasha checked in.” _Two hours since we lost Tony_ , he doesn’t add.

Strange thrusts a slip of parchment into Steve’s hands and gestures at the rakshasa. “I’ll deal with that. We’ve got a hard deadline now.” The sorcerer strides through the melee surrounding the rakshasa. By now, the Avengers have forced it down into the street, where their flyers have an advantage. In moments, he and the monster have vanished through a portal that releases a gust of heat before it slams shut.

Silence falls.

“...Is he going to be okay?” someone, probably Jan, wonders aloud as they gather around Steve and their fallen teammates. No one answers.

Clint stands from where he was next to them. “They’ve both got a pulse, and Strange thought they’d be fine,” he murmurs to Steve.

Steve’s focus is on the thin slip of paper in his hand. Slowly, he reads it aloud. 

_Down the rabbit hole, rabbit,  
there’s just one clue more.   
The wind’s straight in from Jersey,  
you’ve been there before.  
The reigning queen of Hell  
doesn’t know that she’s waiting  
but I’m sure that she’ll see you  
if the devil’s out playing -  
but run quickly rabbit, you're running late  
you’ve got until midnight, and then the spell breaks._

“...One hour,” Steve says. “And another clue after this.” Somehow, he manages to keep his voice steady. Hopefully, he can pass his shaking fingers off with the cold.

Clint reaches over and gently peels it from his fingers before his slowly clenching fists can tear it. “Well, this location’s a bit easier than the last two,” the archer says. “Hell’s Kitchen. It’s just across the river from Jersey, and Daredevil owns the streets there.”

“Well, let’s go find him then. Wasp -”

“Slow down, Cap,” Clint says, gently. “It’s in Hell’s Kitchen, but we’re not looking for the devil. We’re looking for the Queen.”

Bruce hums. “Find the devil, he might know who the queen is, though,” he says. “Though we can’t really count on that.”

“She doesn’t know she’s involved, either,” Rhodes points out, “at least not according to this. If we all show up, it might be a bit much.”

Steve taps his foot, restless. This is too slow, it’s taking too long, Tony is out there in the cold and _they need to find him_.

“Cap,” Rhodes says, in a low tone. 

Steve startles, but no one else so much as glances away from the clue. “Colonel,” he replies curtly.

“You need to take a deep breath and think, Steve. Charging in headlong is going to lose us a lot of time if we don’t figure out which direction to charge in, first. We could end up barrelling the wrong way.”

“But - Tony -”

Rhodey’s voice is grim. “I know. _I know_. But we’re much more use to him if we go slow. I’ve found him before, and I will find him again. Breathe. Think. And then move, with the precision of a striking snake, so no time or movement is wasted.”

Easier said than done, Steve thought. But he pauses, and takes a deep breath, and looks at his team. Christmas Eve, and everyone still in New York had come together with no hesitation. The four took over finding Loki so the Avengers could find Tony, and even T’Challa had called in from Wakanda. Strange jumped _dimensions_ , and Steve doesn’t know for sure that he’s coming back. Clint stands, sharp eyes picking over the inky red words, Jan buzzing around his hand in nervous loops. Bruce breathes deeply, leaning against Rhodey in the War Machine armor. Natasha and Spider-Man lay on the earth, faces smooth and eyes closed.

“Bruce, Jan,” Steve says, and he’s pleased the almost-shakiness is gone. “Coordinate with SHIELD to get Spider-Man and Natasha back to the tower. Don’t let them unmask the kid. Get medical ready to deal with cold-related injuries. The rest of you are with me. We’re going to find Daredevil. Split up; Rhodes, in the sky. Be ready to back us up. Clint, reach out to any contacts you have in the area. The clock’s ticking.”

Jan unshrinks with a half-hearted salute. 

“If you finish early, check in. We’ll go from there. Avengers…” Steve looks around. “Let’s get Iron Man home in time for Christmas.” Turning on his heel, he strides down the street. The whine of War Machine’s repulsors quickly fades overhead. Clint follows.

* * *

Hell’s Kitchen is quiet. Clint isn’t sure if it’s an illusion caused by the falling snow or if it’s genuinely less of a mess this time of year. The white powder has coated everything in a thin layer of ice, burying trash and bloodstains. The lights seem brighter, reflecting off the snow. It’s not merry by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s much less desolate and horrifying than usual.

“If I were Daredevil, where would I be on Christmas Eve?” Clint wonders aloud. Probably at home, curled up in blankets and drinking hot chocolate. He feels useless wandering down the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Clint wonders idly if actual Hell is anything like the place; he’ll have to ask Strange when he gets back. He glances down another alley. No one is there. Big surprise.

“Dammit, Tony,” Clint sighs. “Why is it always you?”

Silence answers. Clint scowls and kicks at the hateful layer of snow. If only it wasn’t so cold. If only he’d tried to push a little harder when he’d invited Tony to his Christmas Eve Bachelor-ette’s Bash. Or had just nixed that plan and hung out with Tony at his place. Whose showerhead was he supposed to fill with Kool-Aid mix now? Who would fill Clint’s showerhead with Kool-Aid mix? Who was he supposed to blame when Fury’s showerhead got filled with Kool-Aid mix? The rest of the team was so serious and boring all the time. Without Tony, Natasha would probably murder him, Bruce would vanish, the Spider-kid would start avoiding them at all costs again, and Steve would mope. Oh, God, the moping. Jan would probably vanish, too.

No way was Clint living like that.

“DAREDEVIL, YOU ASS, IF YOU’RE OUT HERE I NEED TO TALK TO YOU, DAMMIT!” Clint yells. “And, NO, it’s not about the party!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

Clint whips around. Leaning out of an alley Clint just checked is the Daredevil. He has the one-eyebrow-raised posture down pat, well enough that the mask covering the actual raised eyebrow isn’t a problem in the slightest. 

“Hawkeye,” Daredevil continues, nodding at him. “What are you, Captain America, and War Machine doing, tromping rather loudly around Hell’s Kitchen on the one night of the year that most of the criminals actually take a holiday?”

“One of our villains did _not_ take a holiday,” Clint replies. “Loki’s sent us on a Scavenger Hunt, with Tony Stark as the prize. We’ve only got until midnight.”

“Well, damn. I take it I’m involved somehow?”

“No, but someone in Hell’s Kitchen is, apparently without their knowledge. The clue kept talking about rabbits and the reigning queen of Hell. Any ideas?”

Daredevil hums. “There’s a few options for queen. I doubt it’s Elektra, no one would _ever_ compare her to a rabbit. A lawyer, maybe? But that doesn’t make sense. Lawyers in Hell’s Kitchen are either in charge because they are ridiculously corrupt, or barely getting by, with no in between.”

“None of that is helpful,” Clint says. 

Daredevil flaps a hand at him. Clint taps his foot.

“Rabbit, rabbit… Alice in Wonderland - no, that makes no sense…”

Clint tries very hard to be patient. 

“Famous rabbits, go.”

“What?”

“There’s Roger Rabbit, the white rabbit, Lola Rabbit, Peter Cottontail…”

Clint thinks about it. “Jessica Rabbit,” he adds to the list.

“BINGO!” Daredevil laughs. “Yes, I suppose if anyone in Hell’s Kitchen would be the queen - you need to find Jessica Jones, Private Detective.”

“What is it with people in the superhero world and alliterative names?” Clint mumbles.

“Says the teammate of one Bruce Banner and brother of Barney Barton. She’s probably at her office, Alias Investigations. 485 West 46th Street, New York. If not, look for a local bar.”

“Thanks, ‘devil,” Clint says.

“Yeah, yeah. You owe me one.”

Clint nods and heads west. “Cap, Rhodes, got a possibility. Jessica Jones, at 485 West and 46th Street is her office. She’s a detective.”

“Nice work, Hawkeye,” Steve says. “Where are you all at?”

“I’m only a few blocks east,” Clint replies.

“Above,” Rhodes says. “Don’t want to drop in out of the blue in the suit.”

“Good call,” Steve says. “I’m six blocks south. Clint, we’ll rendez-vous outside building and meet her together.”

“Got it,” Clint says, and starts booking for the address. In the mood Steve’s in, he’ll run that distance in like, five seconds. Clint needs to call Bruce and get him to set up some mistletoe before they bring Tony in, try and get those two to actually do something about all the pining.

The blocks to the apartment pass in a blur. Clint’s breathing hard when he reaches the apartment, and takes a second to catch his breath. A second is all he gets, as Steve runs up moments after Clint arrives. Steve’s practically jumping out of his skin, he’s so anxious to just get moving.

The two Avengers head inside, Clint hot on Steve’s heels up the stairs. Steve’s clearly restraining himself from just racing ahead. Probably for the best - if Jessica Jones is anything like the rest of Hell’s Kitchen, Clint’s tendency to be sneaky is more likely to get them somewhere than the reputation of Captain America. Reputations are regarded with skepticism, if not outright malice, in most of the district. 

“Steve,” he pants. “You need to _not_ treat our best hope of finding Tony like the villain of this situation.”

“I know,” Steve snaps, sort of proving Clint’s point for him. Steve seems to realize this and takes a deep breath on the stairs in front of the archer. “I know,” he repeats, much gentler this time.

Clint nods and focuses on not falling back down the stairs. Eventually they reach the right floor and find a glass door that reads “Alias Investigations.” Steve pauses outside, and Clint takes a deep breath. He manages to steady his breathing enough that he probably won’t pass out from trying to keep up with the super soldier, and nods at Steve.

Steve knocks, loudly. There’s a long pause. He knocks again, louder. Clint notices the glass shaking in the frame and puts a hand on Steve’s arm. “Steve,” he says.

Steve steps back and lets Clint take the lead. After a few more moments, Clint knocks - loudly, but not shaking the door half off of its hinges.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! God, it’s Christmas Eve. Doesn’t anyone take a holiday anymore?”

The woman’s voice is a bit slurred, and Clint winces. Oh, he does not see this going well.

The door swings open. The woman who stands there is in a leather jacket, fleece pajama bottoms printed with penguins holding vodka bottles, and wearing far too much eyeliner for eleven at night. Her lips are naturally pouty, but largely negated by the Natasha-level glare she’s levelling at Clint’s head. “What?” she demands.

Clint decides his best bet is to keep it short and to the point. “Hi. I’m Clint, or Hawkeye, that’s Steve, or Captain America, Tony Stark’s been kidnapped by Loki, we’ve got a time limit - midnight - to find him, and we’re pretty sure Loki hid the next clue in his sick, twisted game with you somehow.”

She slams the door in his face.

“Yeah, okay, I saw that coming,” Clint says, as Steve goes very tense behind him. “Steve, stop.”

“Tony’s been out there for two hours now -”

“Yep.”

“- and we’ve only got forty-five minutes to find him -”

“That I doubt. It wouldn’t surprise me if he saves himself before we find him.”

“- and Strange is actually literally _in Hell_ , if he’s even still alive -”

“Again, no one with an ego that big would die that easy.”

“- and I haven’t even told him yet!”

“Told him what?” Clint asks.

Steve winces. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

The door swings open. “Oh, _wow_. You have got it _bad_.” Jessica Jones stares at Steve. There’s a gleam in her eye, but Clint knows better than to assume it’s anything but rage. Homicidal, deadly rage. It’s never, ever good when a woman’s eyes light up like that.

“I do not!”

Jessica’s lips spread into a smirk. “Methinks he doth protest too much,” she says, mocking.

“You have no idea,” Clint grumbles, mostly unnoticed at this point as Jessica narrows in on the target of her ire.

“So you want me to help you find your boyfriend, who you misplaced on Christmas Eve? Some Prince Charming,” she drawls.

“We’ll owe you one,” Clint says, before whatever Steve opens his mouth to say can emerge.

That gets her attention. “Who’s we?” she drawls.

Clint sighs. “The Avengers, collectively,” he says, “will owe you one. With the exception of Tony, since he is the victim in this situation.”

“I really doubt he’d agree with that assessment,” Jessica purrs. Now, Clint can tell, they’re speaking the right language. “What kind of favor?”

“Barring world-ending emergencies and acts of villainy,” Clint replies. He pauses. “And nothing physically impossible.”

Jessica smirks. “You may regret that, Barton,” she says. “Fine, come in. Don’t know that I’ll be much use, though. I’m a bit sloshed.”

“We hadn’t noticed,” Steve grumbles. Clint rolls his eyes, and they follow Jessica into the office. A wobbly desk takes up the center of the space, accompanied by an equally wobbly office chair of dubious origin. More than half a dozen bottles of various alcoholic drinks are lined up along the edge of the desk, with another halfway empty on the other side. More than a few full bottles are on the floor next to the desk, as well.

“When I fall out of my chair trying to grab the next bottle, it’s time to stop,” Jessica says, noticing his scrutiny.

“Next time Tony tries to drink himself to death after a bad mission, I’m bringing all the bottles I can find here,” Clint replies.

“Now that’s my kind of payment,” Jessica says. Walking around the desk, she sits in the chair, grabbing the open bottle and kicking her heels up on the desk. “Now, show me this clue that supposedly led you to me.”

Steve pulls the parchment out of his pocket and hands it over. Jessica glances over it. 

“Rabbit,” she snorts. “Right.”

Clint waits, recognizing thinking-via-snark when he sees it. Steve fidgets behind him. Jessica’s eyes zero in at once.

“Ignore lover boy here, he’s a bit anxious to be on our way,” Clint says, pleasantly. 

“He doesn’t even smell like apple pie. I knew those rumors were exaggerated.”

Clint snickers as Steve glares. 

_“Steve, Clint knows what he’s doing,”_ Rhodes chimes in. _“Trust your people. They’re good at what they do.”_

“That one of the other Avengers?” Jessica asks, eyes drifting back to the clue.

“War Machine,” Clint replies. “He and Iron Man are tight.”

“I’ll bet. _You’ve been there before_... any of you been to see me before?”

“Not unless Spider-Man’s been visiting on the sly.”

“Nah, he tends to stick to Manhattan. So that bit’s for me, then, probably. Where, though, that is the question. I’ve been a lot of places.”

“Shame I wasn’t there,” Clint remarks, vaguely aware he might be signing his own death warrant.

Jessica snorts. “You got any of the other clues?”

Wordlessly, Steve produces them. Clint blinks - he didn’t realize Steve was collecting them. Jessica arranges the clues in front of her, all three side by side. Reading them quickly, she snorts. “Oh, classy,” she says. Turning, she picks up the last empty bottle in the row next to her, and peers inside. “Right back to the start,” she says, and smashes the bottle on the desk without any warning.

Clint gaps as she sweeps the glass aside, heedless of the danger, to reveal a slip of parchment in the shards. 

“Bingo,” Jessica says.

Steve snatches the paper, and reads it aloud.

_One, two, tree,  
Now onto four.  
It may do you no good,   
so I’ll give you this one free:  
Tony Stark can be found  
at the Central Park show.  
He’s right above an army  
and just below God;  
run swiftly, Avengers,  
he hasn’t got long._

“The festival of lights,” Jessica Jones says, and takes a swig from the open bottle of alcohol. “Good luck, that thing gets bigger every year.”

“We’ve got thirty-seven minutes,” Clint says.

“Rhodes,” Steve says.

 _“On it,”_ he responds.

“Jan,” Clint says. “Jan, you there?”

 _“Yeah, we’ve been listening,”_ she replies. _“I’ll head over too. I’ll text Pepper, let SHIELD know.”_

Clint turns to Steve. “Jet’s not far, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:D
> 
> Half hour left...
> 
> Merry Christmas Eve/Happy Holidays, everyone!
> 
> ~Era Penn & Hawkwind1980 (a million thanks for beta reading ON CHRISTMAS EVE, all the kudos!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Not yet beta read - Hawk's an hour ahead of me and had to go do things while I was working on this. May be edited/updated accordingly._

Tony isn’t sure how long he’s been outside, but he’s definitely feeling the cold now. The condensation on the inside of his glass prison has long since turned into frost, and his feet in particular are starting to burn from the cold. He can still feel them, thankfully, but he isn’t entirely sure he wants to. His shivering is nearly uncontrollable. 

“Rhodey,” he tries to mutter. No sound comes out. _Steve_ , he thinks, but he doubts Steve even cares about his predicament. Clint was throwing that Bachelor-ette’s Party tonight to try and get everyone laid, too, so he wasn’t going to miraculously spot Tony in the snow. 

Tony huddles in on himself tighter, tucking his arms even tighter around himself, hands under his arms. He needs his hands, all the fingers attached. 

The dampness from the condensation was starting to frost his clothes, too, and Tony wonders if he can even last another half-hour. Hypothermia sets in just after fifteen minutes wet and cold, on average, and Tony has been out in the cold for far longer, though he hadn’t really been damp until just before the frost started setting in. Death at forty-five minutes, usually.

Tony isn’t average, but Tony has a heat-leaching lump of metal in his chest. Ironically, that will keep his heart beating longer, probably. And there is obviously some sort of magic at play, or Tony wouldn’t have lasted this long - not at his size, in this weather.

He really, really hates magic. 

Tony sighs, watching his breath gust out in front of him. He’s cold, and kind of hungry, and his eyes keep watering. He’s not crying. They’re just dry. The air feels a bit thin, too, probably not enough circulation. The glass is hard under him, and he won’t be able to get comfortable no matter how he sits. Was his fuzzy blanket really too much to ask for?

He doubts anyone is coming to look for him, either. He had planned on spending Christmas alone. He’d heard that if you got cold enough, you felt warm, though. Maybe death by cold wasn’t the worst thing. _Definitely_ better than death by drowning.

It’s just not in his nature to go down without a fight, though. He braces himself and frees his left hand. Reaching out, he traces a crude sketch of the iron man helmet in the ice. Underneath, he writes, “I Am Iron Man” in the largest letters he can. Then, he tucks his hand back under armpit, wincing at the biting chill. That’s just about all he can do at this point

He shivers and waits a little longer, and then the Christmas tree across from his turns off.

* * *

Pepper Potts pulls up to the curb just outside the Central Park Festival of Lights in a limousine followed by a large Ford truck. She climbs out smoothly, and the truck opens, three employees spilling out of the cab and reporting to her for duty.

“Set up the tables off to the side, there,” she says, gesturing. They obey, pulling a few folding tables out of the back of the truck. The first one done setting up their table runs back to the truck and grabs a towel, rubbing the table dry and tossing it to the others. Pepper heads over and sets three large binders and dozens of pens on each table.

“Thank you,” Pepper tells the three. “I’ll have those checks to you as soon as the banks open the twenty-sixth.”

“Much obliged,” the driver says, and they pile back into the truck and leave. The limo idles at the curb.

Pepper, tugging her thick jacket tighter, waits next to the tables, an empress in faux fur and boots.

Two minutes later, a small family comes strolling up. Pepper smiles at them warmly. “Glad you could make it!” she says.

“As if I could resist the bonus you offered,” the man replies.

“And I’ve been trying to get the clan out to look at lights for weeks,” his wife adds. “Plus this might wear the kids out enough to keep them in bed later than six am tomorrow.”

Pepper laughs. “Good luck with that. Sign in at any spot, and I’ll ensure you get that bonus. Keep the clue in mind; you should have received a text…”

“Yes, I’ve got it,” the man replies. “We’ll look for Mr. Stark. He’s done a lot for us.”

Pepper smiles. “Thank you,” she says, and checks her phone. Over a dozen of SI employees have texted her, almost all of them affirmatives. Only one or two have apologized for being too far out of town to come help. She sends back a thank you anyway. At this rate, all of the the R&D department will arrive to help search for Tony. She wonders if she even needs to have bothered to bribe them all with gourmet coffee in the breakroom coffee pots for all of January. That would have the added benefit of getting Tony to spend more time in R&D, though. So that was good.

She greets the next family as they approach - the wife is an intern, and her three kids all spend most of their time playing around at SI as well. She’s highly intelligent, and Tony has mentioned her more than once without mentioning her figure in the same sentence. Pepper mentally notes her loyalty before turning to the next person. SI definitely needs to hold on to her.

They have twenty-eight minutes.

* * *

Clint wanders around between the SI employees Pepper seemingly summoned from thin air. It’s just one more point on his reasons-SI-employees-are-actually-demons-or-aliens list. He scans the trees, looking for anything ordinary, wantering back and forth and looking for an army or a God. He paid even closer attention to trees decorated with green of any form - Loki had a hell of an ego.

They have fifteen minutes.

* * *

Rhodey checks angels and stars and one Iron Man tree topper, looking around the upper branches of ten and fifteen-foot monstrosities. 

He always, always finds Tony Stark. It’s a habit bred from years and decades of looking out for him, from the moment they met in college through Afghanistan and countless attempts on Tony’s life.

He’ll never, ever stop looking.

They have seven minutes, but he’s not giving up then.

* * *

Steve dashes to and from Christmas trees, frantically scanning ornaments and nearly knocking other searchers over. He looks close, eyeing ornaments hanging from branches and bows covered in glitter. His phone counts down the minutes, the seconds until Christmas, until Tony is out of time. Steve has failed Tony so often, caused him so much hurt, been fooled by the facade one too many times. Steve left Tony alone on Christmas Eve to chase shadows of the past. They would have whacked him for it, if they were here.

They have two minutes, and Steve doesn’t know what to do.

* * *

Rhodey hovers in the air, watching the lights go out, slowly, then faster and faster, until it’s dark. Time’s up.

Someone is waving at him, jumping up and down and pumping their arms.

Rhodey only knows one person capable of causing such a ruckus at a _Christmas Tree Festival_ , of all places.

* * *

This is the _best day ever_. First, Cam’s mom let her help make four different kinds of Christmas cookies, to take to grandma’s tomorrow. Then, they went ice skating. After that, they came home, and Red had moved! Cam was starting to wonder if Red was really alive, or just a stuffed elf like her best friend Emily claimed, but Cam knew the truth. They had a gigantic dinner, with potatoes and turkey and so much pie Cam almost burst. Then, mom and dad agreed that Cam could stay up extra late to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on ABC. With hot chocolate! And then, mom and dad got a text from work. It made them all frowny.

Cam, they said, Cam, Iron Man’s gone missing, and he needs our help. I know it’s Christmas, but he needs help. He’s lost at a Christmas Tree show - trapped in a Christmas ornament - so would Cam be okay with going to the show to help look, even though it’s not part of the plan?

Cam’s jaw had dropped, and her eyes had widened. “We get to be superheroes?”

Yeah. Definitely the best day ever.

So Cam looks at every ornament. Her parents are used to her need for precision, and she would probably look at every ornament anyway. Now she looks at all the ornaments, every single one, even the ones that look the same. Her parents seem hurried, a little less patient than usual, but Cam insists. What if she skips one, and Iron Man is trapped in it? What then.

The the trees start turning off. Her parents start cajoling her. Cam, it’s time to go home, they say. But Cam is a superhero, and she’s going to look at every ornament, even if it gets dark, until she saves Iron Man. Just one more tree, Cam begs. Just one more. That one, over there, it’s pretty, and bright, and Iron Man colors, and no one’s really looked there yet.

One more, her parents agree. And then it will be too late, anyway.

So she looks at the big red and gold tree. There’s an ornament that’s a little hidden, almost in the back. There’s an Iron Man face, and backwards letters saying “naM norI ma I.” She grins and carefully stands on her tip-toes to look closer.

* * *

Tony stares at the ornament below him. It’s a mini army of nutcrackers, marching to some unheard tune, painted all red and gold with tall, fuzzy hats. They look really warm.

Above him - well, he can’t really tell, but it looks like a couple figures around a gold box from this angle, so he suspects it’s a Nativity of some kind. It’s started looking fuzzier as the night has gone on. 

Then the world moves and the nutcracker vanishes.

“Mommy, look! This one in the back has an Iron Man face on it!”

“Cam! We don’t touch!”

...Is that the Johnson family, from R&D level four?

“Help,” Tony tries to shout, but nothing comes out. He pulls his hands out of their mostly-useless spot under his arms and bangs on the glass.

“Mommy, look! I found Iron Man! I’m a _superhero_!”

“Oh my - David, go get one of the Avengers running around - good job, Cam -”

Tony grins, vision fading a little more. He’ll buy that little girl her own Iron Man suit, if she wants it, in her favorite color and complete with cupholders. The world spins and bounces up and down, and then the red and gold lights he’s been bathed in all night go out, and - wait, did they say the Avengers were here? - everything turns black.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve stares at the lights going out around him. The trees going dark, the increasing panic of SI employees, the bemused employees at the festival getting screamed at by Pepper Potts, even as they explain that the trees are on a timer, and they physically can’t turn them back on.

They’re too late.

_“Cap, I’ve got him! We’ll meet you at the tower!”_

War Machine blows by overhead in a rush of whining repulsors and wind, and everyone pauses.

“We found him,” Steve says. “We _found_ him.”

“Oh, thank God,” someone says, and he can’t tell if it’s the other Avengers on the comm or the SI employees around them or Pepper’s lips, shaping themselves into perfect letters. The tower. Steve needs to get back to the tower.

He’s turning and sprinting to the jet almost before he registers his own movements, can see Hawkeye coming barrelling up another lane of trees to his left to meet him. Pepper is gathering her binders and marching back to her limo, the other employees breakin up. He sees her pause and turn back at someone’s call, but then he’s in the jet.

They found him.

* * *

“We need to warm him up,” Bruce says sharply. “We can’t work on unshrinking him, we need to focus on warming him up so he doesn’t die. We need to -”

“Deep breath,” one of the Tower’s medical nurses says. “What do we do? Smash the ornament?”

“NO!” Bruce cries. “No, there’s no telling if Loki’s left any nasty surprises. No, we need to. We need… Someone find me a blow drier. And tell me the second Steve Rogers arrives.”

* * *

Stephen Strange is covered in soot. He brushes impatiently at his clothes, relieved the Cloak, at least, is free of the dark powder. He’s so hot it’s almost unbearable, even with its protection. He has burns to last weeks and a long, jagged scratch down his side, bleeding sluggishly. He steps viciously on the severed head of the rakshasa as he moves over it and draws with slow, shaking hands a portal to New York.

He stumbles into the medbay with a sigh of relief. The cool air brushes over his skin like a caress, the Cloak relaxing on his shoulders as though it, too, was suffering under the rabid heat of Hell. A nurse freezes, shocked at his sudden appearance.

“Tony?” he asks, and his voice is rough. He’s been breathing in smoke and fire and fighting for what feels like months, though in this realm it hasn’t been more than a couple of hours.

“They found him,” the nurse replies, snapping out of her shock. “They’re just trying to figure out how to warm him up - he’s got hypothermia and minor frostbite. Nothing too serious, if we can deal with it.”

“Show me,” Stephen breathes. 

She unhesitatingly leads the way. Stephen is even more a medical doctor than Dr. Banner. He’s out of energy, out of magic, and almost out of his own mind, but he needs to check.

“Strange!” 

“Doctor Banner,” he breathes.

“Can you -”

Stephen shakes his head before Banner can finish the question. “I’m all used up,” he croaks. “I can’t get him out or… un-tiny until I rest. But, I might have just enough to get something in, if it’s small.”

“Define small,” Banner asks, all business. He’s in a rush, clearly worried about Tony, but also aware that Stephen doesn’t have long left before he just collapses where he stands, before the overwhelming exhaustion on his shoulders, both in body and soul, knocks him out cold.

“Cloth,” Stephen replies. “It shrinks easily enough. Sometimes by accident even.”

“Dry clothes and a blanket?”

“Doable. Maybe,” Stephen says. “Clothes… might be tricky. Have to stay proportional. I could manage a blanket, or towel.”

Banner produces a thick, fluffy blanket from a basket next to a bed that was clearly prepared for Tony, full-sized. Stephen takes it, and concentrates. He feels the tiniest dregs of energy respond, watches the blanket shrink - unproportionally, as he feared - and disappear from between his fingers.

He grins at his empty hands. “Oh, good,” he says.

He feels the Cloak catch around his shoulders as he tumbles over, utterly spent.

* * *

Clint lands the jet without an ounce of his usual finesse. The landing is jolting and bumpy, settling harder onto the landing pad than he should. It’s fine. Tony Hulk-proofed it.

Tony.

Clint throws off his seatbelt, just barely remembering to shut off the engines before he opens the back. He stumbles out of the jet after Steve, who is rushing ahead, rubbing his cold fingers. He follows more sedately, worn out from trying to keep up all night, straight to the chaos of Tower medical.

He takes in the scene. Hawkeye isn’t his moniker for nothing. He can read the sharp movements of Doctor Banner as efficient, worried, but not frantic, not desperate. He can see the nurses moving with the same steady efficiency, working around him like a target-practice bot. He can see them all ignoring Steve, other than a few clipped, “He’ll be fine if you let us work!”s. He spots Natasha and Spider-Man sleeping. Doctor Strange takes up a medical bed of his own, bleeding but not terribly, obviously worn down to his very soul. He can even spot the small blanket tucked in around tiny Tony in his little glass prison, can put together the pieces and see that Strange must have done it. 

He can see the exact moment Steve sees the sorcerer, and his eyes light up with worried rage.

“STEVE ROGERS,” he yells over the melee, which goes suddenly much quieter. “Get your ass over here and out of the way, now, soldier!”

He sees Steve respond without even thinking about it, like a trainee to a drill sergeant, before he freezes halfway to Clint - luckily well out of the nurses’ way now - and glower. 

Clint moves, too, getting between Steve Rogers and the unconscious mage at once. “If you don’t calm down I will _tranq_ you, Rogers, do not test me.”

“He needs to get up, Tony -”

“Is being taken care of by some of the most competent medical experts in the country, if not the world. You need to take a breath and stop for a minute. Think about exactly how much Strange has done today. We don’t know what he did with Natasha and P- Spider-kid, but I’m pretty sure they’re only alive thanks to him. And then he took a monster to Hell and fought it for us. I don’t think he’s physically capable of _waking up_ , let alone helping Tony. You need to stop. The battle’s over. Now it’s the wait. Now it’s the debrief, the trips to medical, the doctors’ turn. So sit your ass down over there in the corner, and pray like everyone else!”

Steve, though his face is still mutinous, must sense the steel in Clint’s voice and understand that the tranq is no idle threat, because he takes a seat across the room from the three unconscious Avengers and watches.

And Clint can see it as the fight drains out of him, as the adrenaline wears off. Clint can see the moment Steve’s fear-fueled anger calms to worry.

It helps when Colonel Rhodes comes in the door behind Clint, out of his flight suit and wearing a pair of sweats and a hoodie, to sit next to Steve.

Clint joins them, and keeps watching.

* * *

_Tony is cold. His breath puffs out in front of him, light fog in the dark. He shivers uncontrollably. Where is he? How did he get here?_

_He reaches forward blindly into the dark, and runs up against something cold and smooth. Glass? Ice? Something along those lines. He turns and walks. The surface curves under his hands, and Tony stops. This will just lead him in circles._

_It’s cold, and Tony is alone in the dark, trapped._

_He lets his feet slide out from under him, and he rests against that same hard material, curved almost like a hammock under his spine. He can’t get comfortable no matter what he does, or how he tries. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out._

_Then something settles around him. It’s lopsided, and heavy, but it’s fluffy, and warm, and Tony grabs it with both hands._

_“We’ve got you,” he hears, and imagines it’s the familiar fabric echoing with the words of someone else. “We’ve got you.”_

_Tony sighs, and the darkness drifts away into soft nothingness._


	7. Chapter 7

Tony yawns widely and pulls his fuzzy blanket closer around him. He’s deliciously warm, almost hot. He has the feeling of waking up comfortable and safe after a bad dream. His eyes and throat feel dry, a bit like he’s cried recently. He licks his lips and frowns. Since when did his lips get this chapped?

He shifts, trying to get more comfortable on the hard surface beneath him. He must’ve fallen asleep on the lab floor again. But. Wait. Then he wouldn’t have his fuzzy blanket.

Reluctantly, Tony’s eyes blink open. He stares blearily at the red glass above him.

“Oh,” he says, and no sound comes out. “Not a dream.”

Slowly, he sits up. His muscles ache and whine at him as he shifts the blanket around to sit on, more than under. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he looks around at the red-tinted world beyond his prison.

He _thinks_ he’s at medical, in his tower. The endless white walls decorated with paintings of generic fruit and flowers are hard to mistake, even when they look pink. Peering through the glass, he seems to be resting on some kind of tall tray. He can see a few people passed out on chairs nearby. Turning to look behind him, he jerks backwards slightly in surprise, his ornamental jail cell wobbling. There’s no mistaking that floating red bedsheet. Doctor Strange must be here, somehow. 

Tony relaxes minutely, at that. He and Strange may not be super close, but they’re bros, and well on their way to being proper friends, even. Besides, Strange is one of the good guys.

He waves at the Cloak, and it flaps a corner back at him before zipping off, around Tony and towards one of the figures asleep in the chairs. Tony yawns as he watches the Cloak prod and cajole the figure awake.

“Okay, okay, I’m up!” he hears, and practically bounces in delight.

“Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey,” he tries to babble. Of course, no sound emerges. Tony scrunches his nose. That’s going to get old quick.

“Tony!” Rhodey says, and he sounds overjoyed. Tony winces and presses his hands to his ears. So _loud_. “Oops, sorry,” Rhodey says, lowering the volume some. 

It’s still loud, but more bearable. Tony gives him a thumbs up, then gestures at the occupied chairs, trying to display confusion.

“From left to right,” Rhodey says. “Steve, Barton, and Jan. She’s not happy with us at the moment. We sort of abandoned her last night, and she caught a ride back in the hood of Cam - the girl who found you - Cam’s coat hood. Next to her is Pepper, and then Bruce. In the beds across from them, which you probably can’t see from there, Strange, Natasha, and Spider-Man have been out cold since last night.”

Tony tries to give him a panicked look.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down! We aren’t really sure what happened to the two spiders, but Strange assured us that they would be just fine. He’s just exhausted. Bruce said he used the absolute last drops of his magic up shrinking that blanket to try and keep you from freezing to death last night. When did you go being bros with the Sorcerer Supreme, huh? And not telling me? I thought we were friends!” 

Rhodey finishes in a fake valley-girl accent that has Tony snickering silently. He yawns, then knocks on the glass hopefully.

“Bruce said Strange implied he could unshrink and free you once he recharged. I don’t know how long that will be, though.”

Tony nods, relaxing. Then, tensing up a bit again, he makes an L with his fingers.

Rhodey groans. “We honestly don’t have a clue. The Four kept an eye out while we were looking for you, but we didn’t see any sign of him. Can’t get ahold of Thor, either, so maybe he dealt with it. We’re looking into it.”

Tony scowls, but nods, accepting that. His stomach growls. He rubs it, then pouts up at Rhodey.

“What?” Rhodey asks.

Tony stands up, teetering a little bit on his shaky feet as he tries not to hit his head, and rubs his stomach in large hand motions. This feels oddly like the morning after, back in college.

“This is oddly similar to the morning after in college. Hangover mornings. Who knew they’d be useful in the hero business?” Rhodey mutters. Tony grins at him: best friend telepathy, fully functional. “I’ll get Bruce up. I have no idea how we’re going to feed or water you properly when you’re that small.”

Tony nods. Rhodey turns away, presumably to wake everyone else up. Steve’s here, too, which makes something warm flutter in Tony’s chest. Speaking of, his clothes are really stiff and uncomfortable. He strips his shirt and pants off quickly, then burrows back into his fluffy blanket. It’s gigantic, which is glorious. It doesn’t seem to be particularly rectangular anymore though.

“Tony!” he hears, and then the world moves. 

Tony yells, but of course nothing comes out, and he pulls the blankets up over his head to stop the world spinning so much.

“Cap!” he hears Rhodey say, sharply. “Put it down, now!”

A few moments later, when his stomach stops swooping, Tony peeks his head out, sighing in relief to find himself back on solid ground… or tray. Whatever he was resting on.

“Sorry,” he hears Steve mutter. 

Tony waves up at him. “It’s fine,” he mouths.

“Still can’t talk, huh?” Clint asks, poking his head into view. His hair is all rumpled on one side. 

Tony snickers. “Doesn’t stop me from insulting you. Your hair looks like a cockatoo's,” he says.

“Hey!” Clint replies, and Tony _knew_ he’d be able to read lips, “My hair is a masterpiece of golden sunshine and gel!”

Tony rolls his eyes. His stomach growls lowly at him again. Tony tries to ignore it and cuddle under his blankets more. What he wouldn’t give for a pizza right now. Unfortunately, Rhodey has yet to reappear with some form of miniature food. 

He gives Steve and Clint the most pitiful look he can muster from his pile of blankets. He sticks his lower lip out, just a tad, makes his eyes big, like he’s just seen the coolest robot ever, and lets them get just a touch watery. Both of them promptly panic, which is hilarious. If there’s one thing being miniature is good for, it’s increasing the power of puppy eyes.

“Tony, what is it, what can we do?” Clint asks, and he sounds more than a bit frantic.

“Food?” he says. He keeps the puppy eyes on.

“Food! Food, right… how, exactly?” Clint asks, realizing the dilemma almost immediately.

“Sorry Tones, but I’m not sure how to make this work,” Rhodey says, somewhere out of sight. “Food is too big. Strange was able to shrink the blanket last night, but he’s still out cold.”

Impatient, Tony mimes hitting the glass.

“No, we can’t break it. We don’t know what kind of magic got put on it, and Strange seemed worried before he passed out. Said he couldn’t get you out until he recharged, which sounded ominous enough that we don’t want to test it.”

Tony makes his eyes big again, pouts out his lower lip, but to no avail. Cap looks like he’s going to break, but Rhodey just gives him another very firm no.

Tony’s still stuck. He’s still stuck, and his spine hurts from being hunched for so long, and he’s hungry. His breath starts coming faster. How long is he going to be stuck like this? He doesn’t even have a solid estimate. It wouldn’t be so bad if he just knew how long. Everything looks red through the glass. The same thoughts keep cycling through his head, over and over, and he buries himself under his blanket, closing his eyes. He’s just going to sleep more. Maybe. If his heart will stop racing and he can stop gasping.

* * *

“...And we’ve lost him,” Clint says. Tony’s completely hidden by the miniature fluffy blanket, probably trying to shake off what had looked like the start of a nasty panic attack. Steve reaches out again, wanting to hold the little prison, but Rhodey growls at him and he stops himself. 

Clint sighs. “Has anyone tried waking Strange up yet? Maybe he can at least give us an estimate now.”

“I’ll -”

“No. Steve, you need to run down to the big kitchen. See if you can find something we can feed Tony through the little hole there, on top of the cap. I couldn’t think of anything, but I’m not as familiar with cooking, either.”

Steve’s brow furrows, mind slowly refocusing on the task. “I can do that,” he says, and takes off like he’s being chased by angry rhinos wearing ballet slippers.

Clint is very disappointed that this is a metaphor based on personal experience.

Turning around, he heads over to the bed, Rhodey close on his heels. Tony is unlikely to emerge any time soon, and the Cloak drifts close as they move away. Clint figures it will get their attention again if Tony pokes his nose out.

Clint starts by poking Strange on the nose. “Oi,” he says. No effect. He moves to shoulder shaking and yelling.

“Shut uuuuup,” he hears, and turns to the other beds. The Spider-Kid is now on his stomach, pillow wrapped around his ears. “Oooow,” he moans into the bed.

“Oh, good,” Clint says. “We were wondering when you’d wake up. What the hell even happened?”

“The Stark Hall of Robotics was livelier than expected,” comes the muffled response.

Clint winces. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. Then there was the diamond. It is, in fact, cursed. I hate magic.”

“Cursed?” Clint asks.

“The clue was inside it. Two Avengers had to grab the diamond at the same time, thus getting both curses on the damn thing, to get to the clue. We seem to be alive, which is good. Remind me to thank Strange when we see him next.”

“Well, he hasn’t woken up yet, but he’s here.”

A masked eye pokes out from under a pillow, blinking over at the bed Strange is in. “Huh. Wonder if the hangover I’m feeling is normal.”

“Natasha’s not even awake yet, so I’m betting yes,” Clint says. 

Peter sighs and re-buries his face. “How’s Tony?” he asks.

“We found him.”

“Duh. How is he?”

Clint smiles. “He’s okay. Bit shaken up, and really hungry, but okay.”

“Good.”

“He’s also teeny. Like, three inches tall.”

“Take pictures.”

“You got it.”

No response comes, and Clint figures the kid is passed out again. Strange shows no signs of stirring, so he figures the sorcerer is still out of power. Natasha hasn’t woken up either. Spider-Man’s healing factor must have given him a boost.

There’s another yawn from behind him. Clint turns around, finding Jan and Bruce blinking at him blearily. Bruce stares for a second, and then is on his feet and moving to check on Tony. Unlike Steve, he doesn’t pick the ornament up. Instead, he just peers inside, anxious. 

“He woke up,” Clint says. “Then pouted about being hungry, then hid. The puppy eyes have ten times the power when he’s tiny.”

“God help us all,” Bruce says. “Soup, through a dropper, maybe?”

“If you can convince him it doesn’t make him anything like a hamster, that may actually work,” Clint says.

Bruce snorts, and Jan stumbles over as well.

“Morning, Jan,” Clint says.

“I’m not speaking to you,” she replies.

“That’s fair.”

“You just left me!”

“We were in a rush!”

“Still!”

Clint pouts. “I didn’t mean to! Tony was unconscious! And three inches tall!”

Jan softens. “You owe me one.”

Clint nods. “Sure,” he replies.

Jan turns her attention back towards tiny-Tony, and Clint sighs in relief. He was definitely getting off easy.

* * *

Steve returns to the rest of the Avengers with a box of Cheerios. “Think these will fit?” he asks.

“Maybe,” Clint replies. “Give it here, I’ll try a few.”

“One,” Bruce says. “Start with one. We don’t want them stuck in there if Tony refuses to eat them.”

Steve tunes out the friendly banter Clint picks up from there, staring at the red ornament and wishing Tony would reveal himself again. He’s worried. Tony… Tony is larger than life. He’s massive and talkative and fills a room with his presence alone. Tony doesn’t hide out under blankets, he engineers his way out and uses his tiny form to his advantage to prank Clint. Or at least, that’s what Steve would have thought he’d do in a situation like this.

But Tony is hiding, and Steve just wants to help.

“Tony?” he asks. “You okay in there?”

“Fine,” comes the quiet, muffled reply, and then silence again. Steve wonders if anyone else even heard the soft sound. Steve vaguely notes a Cheerio sliding into the ornament and a whoop from Clint. Tony doesn’t emerge.

“Speaking of food, I’m pretty hungry myself,” Jan says, seemingly to no one. She grabs Clint by the arm and hauls him away. Bruce and Rhodey mumble some sort of excuse and vanish out the door, leaving Steve (and a few unconscious Avengers) alone with Tony.

“Hey,” Steve says softly. “Clint managed to get food in there.”

Tony peeks tentatively out of his blanket nest. “A Cheerio?” he asks, sounding offended.

“We don’t exactly have a lot of options,” Steve replied, apologetically.

Tony sighs. “This sucks,” he says. There’s a silence. “I… Sorry for interrupting Christmas for everyone. I’m sure you had better plans than -”

“No, not really,” Steve replies, cutting him off. “Besides, none of us would have had a very happy Christmas knowing we’d lost an Avenger.”

Tony stares at him. “...Sure,” he replies.

“And I wouldn’t have been very pleased to find my shellhead suddenly up and dying on me. I’ve dealt with that enough already.”

A pause. “Your shellhead?” Tony says, voice gaining a little of its usual mischief.

Steve turns a little red. “Mine,” he replies.

“I don’t generally let people keep me,” Tony says. “So you’d better have a plan to convince me when I’m big again.”

“I rather thought I’d just give you ownership of me at the same time,” Steve replies. He won’t waste time, not knowing how fast he could lose the chance.

What little of Tony’s face Steve can see turns bright red. “We’ll have to do a few test runs,” he says, voice still even.

“I think we’re already past the coffee stage. Dinner?”

“Cheeseburgers?”

“Done,” Steve says. Silence falls, and Steve watches Tony emerge far enough to nibble on the Cheerio. He hears someone shift on the beds behind him. Turning, he sees Spider-Man snuggle into the blankets in his sleep.

Tension leaks out of his shoulders. Tony’s here. His team is here. They’re all safe. And - “Hey!” he realizes. “You can talk again!”

“Ssshh, don’t question it,” Tony says, after a short pause to swallow some cheerio. “The magic will hear you and nothing good can come of that.”

Steve’s lips twitch and silence falls for a few moments, broken only by the faint sound of crunching cheerio. 

“Merry Christmas,” Steve murmurs.

“Merry Christmas,” Tony replies absently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all of your amazing comments on the last couple chapters! I know I've been absolutely horrid at answering them, but I have been reading them and I do love to hear from you!
> 
> A million thanks to my beta reader, Hawkwind1980!
> 
> ~Era Penn


	8. Chapter 8

“Oh, thank Thor,” someone says as Stephen blinks his eyes open, squinting at the abnormally white ceiling.

Not the Sanctum. Okay. Not dead, so probably not in danger either. Hangover for the ages. “Oooow,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how Natasha reacted when she woke up yesterday,” the voice continues.

Stephen turns his head and squints. “Hawkeye,” he says. Why is he where there is a Hawkeye? That doesn’t seem con… con… helpful for his sanity levels.

“It’s the twenty-ninth of December,” Hawkeye says. “You’ve been out since Christmas. Really, really early on Christmas.”

Now Stephen is starting to remember. “Tony?” he asks.

“Potentially going to murder us all for continuously feeding him Cheerios and water like he’s some kind of hamster for the last few days,” Clint says, “but alive, and not missing any fingers or toes. Also his voice came back.”

“Oh good,” Stephen says, the world starting to blur again. “I’m just going to sleep some more then.”

“No, wait, first tell the Cloak to stop pranking everyone, it’s really getting -”

Stephen misses the rest of that sentence, but it probably ended with “out of hand.”

* * *

The next time Stephen wakes up, he not only realizes that’s what’s happening, but also feels much less like his brain is going to pound its way out of his skull. There’s a discussion taking place in the room, one of the voices too soft to decipher from where he’s lying. Tony, he thinks absently. 

“What day is it?” he asks, interrupting the quiet conversation.

“It’s the thirtieth. You woke up for a bit yesterday as well,” Natasha informs him. 

“Please don’t undo the spell yet,” Clint says, in a complete turnaround from his earlier position.

“Huh?” Stephen asks.

Natasha snickers. “Tony got sick of Cheerios and asked for some other type of cereal instead. Clint got Lucky Charms - only he ate all the marshmallows out of it and gave Tony the Cheerio-like bits.”

Stephen didn’t need to be able to hear Tony’s muffled voice clearly to know he was cursing the archer out. Clint actually winced.

“Sorry, no can do,” Stephen tells them. “I personally want Tony full-sized as soon as possible. The pout must be lethal.”

“You have no idea,” Natasha says, fervently.

“Besides, the Stark Hall of Robotics coming to life and attacking was bad enough. I don’t want to deal with robots actually designed to cause me problems.”

Clint dives for the vents. “Quit giving him ideas!”

Strange sits up, looking around the room. “Any chance I could get some food? And water? And a phone?”

“A phone?”

“The magic on Tony is all in Nordic runes. I need to get someone to bring me a few books from the Sanctum so I can decipher a few of the more obscure runes. And then learn every scrap of Norse magic I can get my hands on.”

“Cheerios!” he hears Tony yell. “If I have to live on Cheerios, everyone has to live on Cheerios!”

The empty boxes stacked next to Steve, who is sitting next to Tony, are evidence of this claim.

“Puppy eyes?” Stephen asks.

“Absolutely lethal,” Steve replies, looking vaguely terrified. “I’m half tempted to find a way to bottle it and use it against crazy grad students whose final dissertations are giant monsters and robot armies.”

“...I’ll look into it,” Stephen says. “But later.”

Clint reappears with a couple Taco-Time breakfast burritos. Stephen accepts them gladly.

“Smells amazing,” Tony says. “Clint, I’m going to murder you.”

“Dude’s been out for almost a week,” Clint points out. “I don’t think Cheerios are going to cut it if you want him to have enough energy to put you back to normal.”

“No,” Stephen agrees between bites of egg and sausage. “Breaking four curses on two different people, an undetectable extension spell, and fighting several monsters in the depths of Hell takes it out of a sorcerer.” Swinging his legs out of the bed, Stephen wobbles over to sit next to Steve and Tony, who looks a little taken aback.

“What?” the engineer asks, looking thoroughly bewildered.

“Your two spiders willingly cursed themselves to get one of the clues in Loki’s twisted scavenger hunt,” Stephen replies. “And then I had to deal with the rakshasa, and the various denizens of Hell that decided to back it up.”

“They… you…”

Stephen grins a little into his second burrito. Tony may actually be blushing a bit behind the red glass of his ornamental prison, though it’s hard to tell. Finishing off the last couple of bites, he looks at Clint.

Clint sighs and produces tater tots and a water bottle. Stephen quickly polishes them off. 

“ _Much_ better,” Stephen says. “I could eat three or more of those breakfast burritos.”

Clint takes the hint and heads out for more. Natasha clears her throat and hands him a phone. Humming, Stephen quickly dials a number he knows by heart. Ring. Ring. Ring.

_“Hello?”_

“Wong!”

_“Oh, it’s you.”_

“Ouch. I need all the books you’ve got on Nordic runes. Well, all the ones that can be removed from the Sanctum without causing world destruction.”

_“So now you ask for my permission to use my books.”_

Stephen can hear him shuffling around, though, so he’s probably going to get his books. “I have only the utmost respect for those books.”

_“Right. Where should I bring them?”_

“Avengers Tower, medical.”

A short pause. _“You didn’t die again, did you?”_

“I most certainly did not.”

The call ends, and Stephen turns expectantly to the portal swirling into existence in the center of the room.

“You sure?” Wong asks as he emerges, a stack of books floating behind him. “You look like death, and there’s traces of Hell all over you.”

“I popped over for a visit.”

Wong dumps the books on his lap. “I expect these back on time.”

“I wouldn’t dream of returning a book late. I’d probably die again.”

Wong nods. “You would.”

The Avengers stare at them both. Wong eyes them, then turns and leaves again.

“...All hail the mighty librarian,” Tony says.

“Upsetting him is similar to upsetting Ms. Potts,” Stephen says.

The room gives a collective “Ah” of understanding.

“All hail the mighty librarian,” Tony repeats, this time much less jokingly.

Stephen ignores him, sorting through the books. Before he can get immersed in them, Banner comes in at a run.

Only, his hair is bright pink.

Stephen can’t help it. He bursts into laughter. “I take it the cloak got bored,” he says when he catches his breath.

Banner nods. “It seems to take a particular delight in screwing with Clint, probably since Clint keeps retaliating with Febreeze and Shout. And also anyone who upsets Tony. In other words, whoever happens to feed him on any given day.”

“Well then, we’d better get Tony back to normal.”

Stephen flips open the first book and dives into a review of Nordic runes.

* * *

Clint watches Strange robotically consume the three breakfast burritos, the sorcerer’s attention focused almost entirely on his books. “How long has he been like this?” he asks.

“Since just after you left,” Steve replies, also watching the sorcerer. “It’s like Tony in the workshop.”

Clint nods. He sees the similarities. 

“Also,” Natasha adds, “it seems that upsetting Wong, Strange’s… librarian, for lack of further information, is akin to pissing off Pepper.”

“Don’t screw with the almighty librarian, got it.”

Tony snickers. “I said almost that exact thing,” he says.

“Sh,” Strange says, absently, and they all shut up.

* * *

About four hours after getting his books delivered, just after noon, Strange yawns, stretches, and stands. Tony sharpens immediately. “The lot of you, out,” Stephen says. “This is going to be tricky, and messing it up is… not beneficial to Tony’s continued survival.”

“Yeah, okay, all of you go away,” Tony says. He really hates magic.

Steve moves to sit by the door, but won’t leave. The rest of the Avengers huddle just outside of it.

Standing, Stephen moves across the room and picks Tony up, carefully. Tony doesn’t slip and slide around nearly as much as in Loki’s careless fingers or Steve’s desperate ones. Strange just straightens the ornament out so it points straight upwards, then cradles it carefully in his palms. They shake just a little, but Tony knows he can’t help that. He and Strange have been working on solutions to Strange’s damaged hands, and Tony knows it frustrates him immensely.

Moving to the center of the room, where there is a large, open space, Strange lets go. Tony flinches inside the orb - that looks like a long fall, tiny as he is - but it hovers there in the air. Stephen takes a few steps back and paces a circle around Tony, drawing gold runes in the air. When he reaches his starting point, he starts explaining.

“Loki built the spell in circles,” he murmurs, beginning to walk another circle back the other way. “To fit the shape better. The one that shrunk you is the “base” layer, so I have to undo it last. On top of that, he’s layered several spells. There’s at least two preventing the glass from breaking in different ways, and another to make it difficult to find. There are a few others, as well. I need to dismantle them in the right order.”

“Or?” Tony asks, apprehensively.

“Magical Jenga. Pull out the wrong block, and… well. I’m sure you can imagine the results.”

“Lovely,” Tony says.

“Sarcasm, how original.”

Tony snorts, and Strange keeps moving in circles. After his third time around, the gold runes flare and vanish. “One down,” the sorcerer says.

Tony sighs. “I hate magic.” 

“Yes, yes,” Strange says.

“Don’t placate me,” Tony grumbles, but subsides anyway, tucking himself into his blanket better. 

Strange doesn’t bother to answer, and continues walking in circles. Tony, at the epicenter of the magic, shivers. He can feel the power roiling in the air around him. Strange isn’t even up to his full power, and Tony can tell just how strong he is. The magic weaves around him like Tony is wrapped in a vortex.

“Peace,” Strange says, softly. “I will not harm you.”

Tony takes a breath, not realizing he’d stopped breathing. “Jarvis, please tell me you’re scanning this,” he says, pretending not to be nervous as all.

Strange’s lips twitch as Jarvis replies that he most certainly is, but he allows Tony to get away with the evasion. His second layer of magic flares and shatters. The glass ornament cracks, and Tony flinches.

“Well now,” Strange mutters. “None of that.”

Tony breathes very, very carefully as Strange starts to weave another spell. This one doesn’t flare and vanish; it coalesces, draping itself around Tony.

“Protection from the glass,” Strange tells him, and gets back to breaking Loki’s magic.

Tony can feel the intentions in the energy settled around him. It’s very odd, as though someone has taken a chunk of protective instinct and made it into a solid, invisible covering. It feels so inherently safe that Tony dozes a bit as time passes. It feels somewhat nonsequential, like time is running backwards and forwards and sideways all at the same time, and he stops trying to make sense of the sensation as Strange’s steady murmurs, explaining what he’s doing (sort of), keep Tony grounded.

When the glass shatters, Tony jumps, the air underneath him suddenly _very_ empty.

Strange’s magic vanishes, and he scoops Tony and his blanket out of the air, looking very pleased. Making his way over to one of the beds, he sets Tony on it. “All that’s left is making you big again.”

“Awesome,” Tony says. “That’s the end goal here.”

Strange peers past him, looking at something Tony can’t see. It’s almost like he’s looking through Tony, at some core element of his being that makes him himself. This time there are no fancy runes or circles. Strange just reaches forward and pinches his fingers together, then tugs.

Tony is quite abruptly his proper size, disoriented and flailing.

“There we are!” Strange says, and falls onto the bed across from Tony’s.

There’s a squeak from the doorway, and Tony turns clumsily to find Steve bright red, his face buried in his arms. Rhodey, standing next to him, is smirking.

Tony looks at himself and grimaces. He’s naked, and also smells horrendous. Yanking the sheet off the bed under him with fumbling fingers, he tugs it around his body.

“I suggest a long shower,” Strange says. “You’ll probably need a hand, getting used to your larger proportions and all.”

Tony smirks and stands on wobbly feet. “Well, Cap?” he asks, “Care to join me?”

Steve squeaks again.

* * *

“MY FRIENDS!” Thor booms, striding into the room.

“Where the hell have you been?” Clint demands.

Thor falters, slightly, a look of confusion passing across his face. “I spent this yuletide season in Asgard, with my Lady Jane. Though my brother sought to ruin the holiday with stolen magical relics from here, on Midgard. I was worried he had fought you here first and bested you; was this not the case?”

The rest of the Avengers glance at each other. Jan, Clint, Bruce, Pepper, Rhodey, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, and Natasha are sprawled across the various surfaces of the tower common room waiting for Tony and Steve to emerge from Tony’s shop. Since the events of Christmas, the two had been nearly inseparable. 

“Well… Sort of,” Bruce says weakly from his armchair. “He, ah, led us on a not-so-merry chase.”

Thor frowns. “I apologize greatly for my absence.”

“Sounds like he caused you trouble, too,” Jan says.

“Verily. Shall we swap tales?”

Pepper is quick to efficiently sum up the events of the holiday for Thor. He quickly tells them of his holiday as well, explaining that Loki had somehow stolen a grimoire for the raising of the dead and attempted to destroy the holiday in Asgard as well.

“You know,” Tony says from the doorway, “That almost makes me glad I was stuck in a Christmas Ornament for days.”

“Friend Tony!” Thor says. “I am glad to see you are well.”

“You too, big guy. What are you all doing here, anyway?”

Steve rolls his eyes in the doorway behind Tony.

“Uh… Surprise, then, I guess,” Clint speaks up first. “It’s New Year’s Eve, we’ve been planning this for like a month.”

“Huh. I forgot.”

“You forgot? Seriously?” Pepper demands. “Do you realize how many invitations, RSVPs, and demands I had to reject, change, and ignore? Because you insisted we were hosting the Avengers for New Year’s?”

“...Nah, not seriously, just joking,” Tony says. “Soooooooo what’s the plan?”

Pepper throws her hands in the air. “I give up. My resolution is destined to fail.”

“It’s not even the new year yet.”

“Good, then I’ve got a head start.”

“And I’ve got a plan,” Clint interrupts.

Everyone turns to stare at him.

“What? I needed _some_ way to get back into Tony’s good books besides supplying him with coffee and donuts every time I ran into him in the halls. Do you know how many boxes of Cheerios I had to get through just to get into my room? And I keep finding more of them in the vents.”

Tony snickers, and Steve glares. “Is that why he’s been bouncing off the walls?” the captain asks sharply.

“Noooooo…”

“Plans,” Natasha says, getting the archer back on track.

“Right, plans! Follow me, young padawans, Jarvis and I got it set up while Tony was still miniaturized!”

Everyone follows behind Clint, hesitantly. Clint’s plans have a way of backfiring that made everyone very wary of them. This time, though, he doesn’t even lead them off of the common Avengers floor. Instead, they trail him down a hallway to one of the rooms generally kept for storage, just by virtue of never being used.

“Behold,” Clint cries dramatically, flinging the door open, “The ultimate movie experience!”

Tony gapes. The entire room has somehow been turned into the ultimate blanket fort. The walls and ceiling are draped with loose cotton fabrics. The entire floor has been lined with what appears to be a massive memory foam pad. The pad also lines the walls a few feet up, behind the hanging blankets and fabrics. Dozens of pillows are tossed haphazardly across the space. Only one wall is free of the giant fluffy mess, and it is clearly meant to be used as a giant movie screen.

Someone pushes him and he goes tumbling head over heels into the room with a yelp. The plush cushioning easily catches him and he finds himself struggling to get his body oriented properly for movement in the cloud-like area. He hears Thor’s booming laugh, and then the god helps tip him over so he can move around again.

Clint bounces (literally) over to a blank space on one of the side walls that Tony hadn’t noticed, and pulls out a long table that rests across several feet of the cushion. Natasha follows him over, somehow not bouncing, and dumps a puzzle out on it. Everyone proceeds to wander over to the center of the room, where Tony, Thor, and Steve are flopped out.

“So, what movie should we start with?” Bruce asks, floofing through the chaos.

“ _Die Hard_! Totally counts as a holiday movie!” Clint says at once.

Everyone groans. “No,” Natasha says.

“ _Home Alone_?” Tony asks. “Just the first one. And then we can watch something else.”

“ _Home Alone_ sounds good,” Steve agrees, though he clearly has no idea what it is. Clint snickers at him, and Steve hits him in the face with a pillow before settling in comfortably next to Tony. Rhodey sprawls out on his other side, Thor plopping down behind them as Bruce and Natasha slide down in front of them. Jan stretches out on Steve’s other side, and Clint drops down across all of them until they shove him off. Then he sulkily settles down next to Bruce.

Tony’s warm, and surrounded by his friends. 

He’s home.

He feels his shoulders relax as he grabs Steve’s hand and obnoxiously tosses his feet across Rhodey’s lap. “Hit it, J,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is abysmally late, and I apologize. My computer is not working, so I am really limited on time I can work on fics. Thanks a million to Hawkwind1980, my awesome beta reader (you're the best!)! Thanks for sticking with me to the end, dear readers! And though I haven't had time to respond, thanks a million for all of your amazing comments and reviews! Keep an eye out for updates to my other fics, especially in Clint Too, Has a Past, and The Secrets We Keep (they're next on my list.).
> 
> ~Era Penn

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas/happy holidays to you all! This was inspired by some rather amazing art over on tumblr, so check that out! Gifted to arianapeterson19 - I tried to update TSWK, but I'm struggling with it a bit and I have some last minute classwork to do, so have this instead. I'll try to get it finished up quick so you have something to read, as well as update TSWK for you. Hope you feel better soon!
> 
> ~Era Penn


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